Intertribal Life Newspaper -

EDMONTON, Alberta-For more than 30 years, a treasure trove has sat in boxes-a collection of 900,000 hours of video and audio tape focused solely on Indigenous events, messages, stories, and people. The Government of Alberta had purchased the collection for a cool $80,000. Eventually they turned around a resold it to Bert Crowfoot and the Alberta Native Communications Society for just $1-and the promise that the collection would be kept safe.

The collection has sat untouched through the decades, sitting in storage at three different buildings-until now. Crowfoot has enlisted help from the director of the University of Alberta's Sound Studies Institute, Mary Ingraham, and the pair is learning more about MUKURTU, a free digital and mobile platform specifically built to help Indigenous communities share such cultural treasures.

No one is yet sure exactly what is on the tapes. Some are well-marked, but others are obscure. Some clips that have been digitalized show a 1974 powwow from Cree Nation as well as video of a television show on which Chief John Snow from Nakoda Sioux First Nation discusses oral traditions.

Crowfoot says the tapes will probably also show footage from other Indigenous talk shows, storytellers, and events-with the Cree language undiluted.

"What's important in all these boxes is that those voices be kept alive," Crowfoot told reporters at Global News, "that their messages be heard by their family and also others."

Preserving the footage and preparing the film for a broader audience will be no easy task. For every hour of content digitalized by the University of Alberta, five to eight hours of additional documentation will be necessary to make the films more easily accessible. Those working on the film hope to make it searchable by year, band and even family names. The initial cost is estimated at two million dollars.